It’s safe to say that mere seconds into Infinite Light, the second album from Lightning Dust, you can pretty much decide what side of the fence you sit on with the Vancouver duo. Amber Webber’s warbling yet affecting vocals make their appearance shortly after a few soft strums of an acoustic guitar on opening track “Antonia Jane” and the stage is set for the rest of the folky, yet synth laden tracks that follow. Lightning Dust is the side project of Black Mountain’s Amber Webber and Joshua Wells, but whereas Black Mountain is often described as having a harder more psych-rock sound, Lightning Dust is the avenue by which Webber and Wells can create more stripped down, melodic and softer tunes.
After “Antonia Jane” fades out, a machine driven drum beat leads into first single “I Knew”, a two-and-a-half minute jaunt which takes the album from the straight-forward approach of “Antonia Jane” to the eeriness of Webber’s vocals complimented by the synth based instrumentation that characterizes most of the album. Webber’s vocals are still the distinguishing feature throughout, but the music steps it up a notch from their self-titled debut album back in 2007 to create melodies that can better serve Webber’s unique style. Maybe this is best seen on album centerpiece “Never Seen” which features a glorious breakdown in the latter half of the track which for me is easily the highlight of the entire disc. At 10 songs and just shy of 35 minutes, Infinite Light flies by. But, with so much substance in the tracks included, it doesn’t feel like you’ve been cheated at all, unless you’re one of the few who decide against Lightning Dust after those first few seconds, in which case, maybe you should give it another try.
I want to throw out a quick recommendation for an album that’s been tearing up my ipod since it’s recent release, and that’s Up From Below by LA’s Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros. Edward Sharpe is the alter ego of frontman Alex Ebert and his Magnetic Zeros are the rest of the 11 or 12 musicians comprising a band that could easily be mistaken as a 60’s hippy group touring around in their converted school bus (they actually do that). I first heard of the group when All Songs Considered discovered them at SXSW back in March, but I kind of forgot about them until a recent (rare) opportunity I had to listen to satellite radio and heard one of their songs which reminded me to check them out. Up From Below, the debut album from the group, was recently released and I got a hold of it off of eMusic and have enjoyed it a great deal. As you can imagine from their KCRW performance (seriously, go watch this now), their live show is supposedly incredible making their studio recordings a bit of a let down. So the album may not do them justice but since I haven’t seen them live, it sounds just fine to me. It’s certainly a throwback to the psych-folk rock of the 60’s and along with The Phenomenal Handclap Band, I’m enjoying this little retro feel the summer of ’09 has going for it to this point.
Well, here we are at the All-Star break so what better time to summarize the Orioles 2009 season than at the halfway point. So yeah…this could will be a long post. First things first, I have to preface this post by mentioning that I couldn’t care less about the Orioles record this year. No one (including the front office) expected the Orioles to contend or even come close to contending this year. When COO and GM Andy Macphail took over in 2007 he said he didn’t expect to put a contender on the field until 2010 at the earliest. The key to this season for the O’s is progress…on the major league club and in the minors. So if you go by that judgment scale, the first half of ’09 has to be seen as a success. So let’s break it down:
A little something I like to do every year is dole out some awards for the music up to the halfway point of the year. Nothing too detailed, just a little summary. As usual for all my lists, the only albums I’m including are albums that I own and are currently in my itunes library. And of course all this can change as I listen to albums more, but this is what I’m feeling so far for 2009. Enjoy!
Animal Collective
Best, let’s say, 7 Albums (in order of release date):
Antony & the Johnsons – The Crying Light
It’s a beautiful and affecting listen, which was to be expected from Antony Hegarty. It was the first great release of the year and has stuck around to now. I already mentioned in my 1st quarter of ’09 wrap-up…nothing more to add to that really.
Once again, check my 1Q of ’09 post that mentions this release as well. People are starting to pick up on its brilliance but it will surely gain even more of a following once Frenchkiss reissiues it this August.
The only album of these 7 that I haven’t mentioned on the blog yet. The first 6 songs are hard to top. Longstreth tones down the weird just a bit, and it gets album of the year hype…go figure.
One of my most listened to albums so far this year. It doesn’t deserve any album of the year or even top 10 talk, but I think it deserves more attention than it’s getting.
They left behind their melodic pop hooks that made Peregrine so good, and went back to their post-rock instrumental days with bland results. Best description I’ve heard was that it’s like Explosions in the Sky tried to make an Appleseed Cast album…not what I was hoping for.
I just haven’t put enough time into this one to get a reading on it. Some of it has some early Built to Spill indie feel to it, which deserves my attention.
I’ve been criticized (I won’t name names) for having music tastes that are often devoid of any feel good, singing with the windows rolled down, rockin’, happy tunes, but rather focuses on being different from the norm and usually less rockin’ or poppy than what most would consider instantly gratifying tunes…aka “weird”. This is, of course, a criticism I vehimately deny. I will admit, however, that when it comes to picking my best albums, they are usually albums that do not fit into the mainstream or pop music crowd. This isn’t to say that I don’t like some bands like that, it’s just that I do not consider those albums to be the best albums of whatever year. This is one reason why I always differentiate my year end list by calling it the best albums of the year, rather than my favorite…because those are two different things, however, I will say, oftentimes they are one and the same.
You can think of it in terms of movies. For example, a couple years ago a movie like Transformers was an insanely entertaining and very fun movie to watch and was probably one of my favorite movie going experiences of the year. However, that movie has no business even being uttered in the same sentence as The Academy Awards (unless it’s for a technical category), and this is something that can be said for most Summer blockbusters (Transformers 2 this Summer!!!) and thus I rarely consider to be the best movies of the year however enjoyable they may be. Music is the same way. There are many catchy, fun to listen to albums, but ultimately they lack substance and really are just cheap thrills…and that is something I don’t find much artistic value in. However, every now and then an album comes along that merges both sides of this spectrum. Manners is one of those albums.
It’s safe to say that mere seconds into Infinite Light, the second album from Lightning Dust, you can pretty much decide what side of the fence you sit on with the Vancouver duo. Amber Webber’s warbling yet affecting vocals make their appearance shortly after a few soft strums of an acoustic guitar on opening track “Antonia Jane” and the stage is set for the rest of the folky, yet synth laden tracks that follow. Lightning Dust is the side project of Black Mountain’s Amber Webber and Joshua Wells, but whereas Black Mountain is often described as having a harder more psych-rock sound, Lightning Dust is the avenue by which Webber and Wells can create more stripped down, melodic and softer tunes.
Posted by Hawkins 
A Round of Sound 